Five are back together – and this concert was nostalgia done right.

MUSIC
Five | Keep on Movin’ Tour ★★★★
Rod Laver Arena, May 23

The half hour before Five steps on stage feels like being on the bus on the way home from school. There’s a soundtrack of Vengaboys, the Goo Goo Dolls, the Spice Girls. A woman to my right is wearing tiny, colourful butterfly clips. The air is filled with excitement, and there’s a sense of (mildly and politely) cutting loose.

When the five silhouettes appear at the back of the stage – all original members of the band, back together in Melbourne for the first time in 26 years – the cheering starts. They’re straight into Slam Dunk (The Funk) and as we hit the end of its built-in countdown “Five, whatcha waiting / Four, if you wanna / Three, two, one, let’s do it” the curtain drops and the entire arena is transported back to the time in our lives when this music formed the soundtrack.

And, it soon becomes clear, the nostalgia threaded throughout this arena isn’t just for us in the audience.

“Somebody told me we played this arena in the year 2000. That’s 26 years and finally all five of us have made it back to the stage. Back in Australia!” says Sean Conlon to a volley of cheers. Across the night, each member of the band takes a moment to share some thoughts with the crowd. None of it feels like lip service, or like the obligatory shout-out to the fans. Each of them genuinely seems to relish being back on stage and back in each other’s company.

They know what people are here for, and it’s not for the songs on their 2022 album Time. Five (1998), Invincible (1999) and Kingsize (2001) all get a work-out, with the mega-hits carefully spaced across the set and encore, and a handful of covers sprinkled in too.

It’s hard to believe that the initial flush of fame – and that the band’s original run, only really went for about five years until they broke up, reformed, broke up, partially reformed, and repeated this pattern sporadically over the next few decades.

For a time, the band Five were performing as a group of three – though no matter how numerically incorrect their name got, they always stuck with original members, no replacements.

Now that they are back together they genuinely seem to be having the time of their lives, and that energy spills out and over the packed arena. They even make taking time out to drink water fun, breaking into a ditty of “let’s all have a water, hey!”

Ritchie Neville’s energy is sky-high all night; Jason Paul Brown throws himself into his raps with zeal and when he’s not singing, he’s grinning. Conlon brings a quiet intensity while Abz Love is puckish and constantly on the move, pointing out signs in the audience and telling the crowd that he’s thinking of moving here (something that bandmate Neville actually did for a time, where he worked as a sommelier and later restaurateur).

Scott Robinson shares that this time around he feels he is actually experiencing things completely. “I couldn’t even see these crowds. I was on the stage but not really – not in my mind. I couldn’t even see these boys. And now I appreciate them so much.”

When nostalgia is done right, it’s all of the good with none of the bad. It’s singing along in the car on the way to the party, not the fight that happened three hours later. It’s the sun shining down on you and your friends during lunch, and not the pressure of exams or expectations, or the nebulous shape of life to come. It’s listening to When The Lights Go Out at a birthday party and not realising that the lyrics are deeply inappropriate for a group of 10-year-olds.

Most of the band gesture towards the hurt and fallout they each felt when Five first split in 2001. “To be a part of this, and then you’re sat in your living room and it’s all over and you’re scratching your head at 21, 22 ‘going huh, how’s that over now already so quick?’ says Neville.

Through all the break-ups and partial reformations, it’s Brown who has been away the longest, and it’s his speech that hits the hardest.

“Like every single one of you, we attach memories and emotions and important periods of our lives to either certain songs or certain albums. And when you’ve written songs and a certain thing was going on at that point in your life then you attach those emotions and memories to that,” he says. “Unfortunately for me, personally, a lot of our music’s had slight negative connotations to it because of a lot of stuff that went on in the band.”

Doing this tour, and performing all their songs together again, however: “Now all of this music is having this part of my life attached to it and erasing all of the negative stuff that came before. And again I want to thank all of you people for being a part of it.”
Reviewed by Elizabeth Flux

CIRCUS
Kooza ★★★★★
Cirque du Soleil, Flemington Racecourse, until July 19

Precarity is a fact of life in the performing arts, even for household names like Cirque du Soleil, and it’s great to see them in full flight again. The Canadian circus juggernaut took a hard landing in Melbourne in the pandemic years. Its spectacular Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities was shuttered by the first COVID lockdown, mere days into the season, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection not long afterward.

International service has since resumed. New show Luzia toured Australia in 2024, yet of all the Cirque du Soleil I’ve attended over the years, Kooza remains my favourite and the one I’d take kids to see.

It’s got all the qualities that you associate with Cirque du Soleil. Pageantry and costume. Eclectic world music. Sky-high production values. World-class acrobatics you won’t find anywhere else.

Most Cirque du Soleil shows can tick those off a list. Here, they merge into a seamless, irresistibly charming fantasia, drawing on the archetypes of commedia dell’arte to deliver a clownish odyssey that resembles an illustrated children’s book come to life.

A mysterious package arrives as a Pierrot-figure (Alexander Yudintsev) – an innocent clown in cute nightwear – tries to fly a kite. Out springs a Harlequin-figure, a jack-in-the-box trickster (Kevin Beverley), who takes the innocent on a dream journey that vaults between gravity-defying feats and the lively antics of a clown kingdom ruled over by a clown king (Mark Gindick).

(At one point, there’s a clown coup – with Australian actor Shane Jacobson picked out of the audience to seize the crown on opening night – though that’s the only major piece of audience participation in buffoonery that’s entertaining but also practical, buying time to set up new apparatus between jaw-dropping displays of acrobatic prowess.)

The acrobats are astonishing. All circus speaks in the language of wonder, but it’s rare to encounter a wow-factor so consistently high that you’ve got to keep reminding yourself to close your mouth.

Aerialists are well-represented: a dizzying aerial tissue routine (Mizuki Shinagawa), a teeterboard ensemble that features backflipping on stilts, an incredible highwire act in which riding a bicycle across a tightrope is just the beginning.

And of course, the Wheel of Death. Even a massive jazz showstopper with skeleton showgirls (summoned by the innocent in a “sorcerer’s apprentice” moment) can’t compete with the thrill of watching acrobats scurry across a gigantic, gyrating hamster wheel for two.

There are plenty of preternatural physical feats on the ground. You’ll never forget the exquisite flexibility and balance of the Mongolian contortionist trio (Sunderiya Jargalsaikhan, Ninjin Altankhuyag and Sender Enkhtur), or the Ukrainian unicycle duo Anastasiia Shkandybina and Dmytro Dudnyk, or the moment when the Pierrot-figure tries his hand at circus on the Cyr wheel.

It’s magical circus apt to leave all but the most jaded eye sparkling with delight, and if you’ve never seen Cirque du Soleil, this is an ideal entree.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

THEATRE
Retrograde ★★★★
Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio until June 27

Titan of film Sidney Poitier is transposed to the stage in Ryan Calais Cameron’s three-hander play Retrograde, a claustrophobic confrontation of competing ideologies and values that unfolds in real time across 90 minutes.

It’s 1957 and Bobby (Josh McConville), modelled after real-life screenwriter Robert Alan Aurthur, has cast his friend Poitier (Donné Ngabo) in his latest film. NBC lawyer Mr Parks (Alan Dale) invites Poitier to his office under the guise of finalising his contract. But what transpires is something far more sinister and tense, based on a real-life encounter Poitier had.

Zoe Rouse’s set is contained to an ornate room that morphs into a distillation of broader concerns playing out in the larger world. Cameron’s play superbly materialises a time when McCarthyism was running rampant, personal spaces were being surveilled, overt displays of racism were commonplace, and Hollywood was employed as a site of covert propaganda.

It’s a political climate that’s gallingly similar to today’s, in which anti-war and anti-genocide rhetoric is hailed as “radical” and people of conscience who refuse to adhere to “American values” are summarily punished.

The play’s incessant push-and-pull between whether Poitier will succumb to what is asked of him or not lends the play its overarching structure. Tension is sustained throughout despite the repetitious framework.

But what you mightn’t expect in a play so heavy is just how funny it is. Nearly every statement that unfurls from Mr Parks’ mouth is a witty aphorism or barbed insult that, while strongly grounded in its time, lends complexity to a frankly contemptible man.

Far from a one-dimensional villain, Dale’s snivelling, menacing Mr Parks is a worthy adversary reflective of the unctuous nature of show business – as mesmerising in the way he weaponises language as he is caustic and manipulative. McConville’s multilayered Bobby is a slippery ally as he vacillates between demonstrations of solidarity and his outsized self-interest.

Under Bert LaBonté‘s direction, Poitier’s theatricality comes to the fore in spotlit segments punctuated by a jazzy drum roll where Ngabo shakes off the strictures of his sublimation in Mr Parks’ office and narrativises his life. A flashing red “applause” sign summoning a television studio incorporates the audience into the unfolding action.

Rouse leans completely into 1950s men’s fashion with sack-style suits, suspenders, two-tone wingtip brogues. Sidney and Bobby wear complementary shades of brown, yellow and burgundy, but Mr Parks is in dull grey, almost receding into the vista of skyscrapers that backdrop his office. Fittingly, he symbolises a relic of a bygone era that’s fighting tooth and nail to retain dominance in a world that’s shifting faster than his “lily-livered” brain can comprehend.

Each actor is brilliant in their respective roles, but the emotional crux of the play hinges on Ngabo and he rises admirably to the challenge. From a tightly coiled bundle of barely suppressed nerves to a wellspring of energy and overflowing resentment at the injustice of it all, Ngabo doesn’t merely bear an uncanny resemblance to Poitier.

For all that Poitier is synonymous with, his voice remains one of his signature hallmarks. The deliberate cadence, melodious lilt and rich timbre of his speech – largely shorn, in the end, of his childhood Bahamian accent as he tried to gain purchase in whitewashed acting circles – is masterfully replicated by Ngabo. So much so, when we hear Poitier’s real voice at a key juncture, it’s near impossible to tell the difference. It’s an incredibly moving denouement to a timely microcosm of political suppression and personal integrity.
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

MUSIC
Schubert’s Fantasy and Octet ★★★★
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 23

It could be argued that Richard Tognetti likes nothing more than a challenge. The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s artistic director and lead violin certainly set himself a formidable task in arranging Schubert’s violin and piano Fantasy in C major, D. 934 for eight players to pair with the composer’s deservedly popular Octet in F major, D. 803.

Scored for two violins, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn, the Octet is a masterclass in imaginative, cohesive chamber-music writing. By contrast, the Fantasy is a work for solo instrument with a fiendish piano accompaniment, once described as more difficult than all of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos put together.

Tognetti rises to the Fantasy’s challenges with colourful creativity, often conversing with the carefully honed timbres of David Griffiths’ clarinet and allowing Carla Blackwood’s horn to come to the fore in the set of variations at the work’s core. There are times when busyness leads to some slight ensemble awkwardness and to thin, less attractive textures. Still, Tognetti plays with panache and engenders a good sense of humour among his accomplices.

Anchored by the plushness of a string quintet where Tognetti is joined by violinist Helena Rathbone, violist Stefanie Farrands, cellist Johannes Rostamo and Maxime Bibeau on double bass, the Octet is delightfully flavoured by clarinet, horn and Todd Gibson-Cornish on bassoon.

Highlights in this hour-long tour de force include hearing Rostamo’s creamy tone in one of the fourth-movement variations, along with Griffiths’ many cameos, especially those played with Tognetti.

Through all of Schubert’s lyricism and drama, the players project an attractively patinated sound, where subtle changes of colour and mood buoy the listener’s spirits.

Although it was a pity not to hear the Octet’s originally intended companion piece, Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20, the outpourings of Tognetti’s intrepid spirit are worthy of attention.
Reviewed by Tony Way

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